Why Should I Consider Outsourcing My Medical Billing & Coding?

Time is money! Most practices lack resources and time necessary to ensure maximum reimbursement. You and your medical staff need to focus on treating patients and let MEREM Healthcare Solutions handle the rest. Outsourcing your coding, medical billing, collections, consulting, and credentialing, will allow your staff extra time to take care of patients more effectively and lower overhead costs and paperwork. By choosing to outsource to MEREM Healthcare Solutions, your practice can:

Reduce labor costs.
Increase availability for patient scheduling
Eliminate the cost of recruiting and training
Improve accuracy and reduce claims denials
Lower continuing education expenses in your medical billing and coding departments

Improvement in just one area of your medical practice can mean a significant improvement to your revenue cycle. However, with the many outsourced healthcare solutions that MEREM Health delivers to specialty medical practices, our experienced team can become a great asset to the overall productivity of your practice.

As an outsourced healthcare solution specializing in the areas of coding, billing, revenue cycle, and education, we see the benefit of having more knowledgeable people in the field with billing and coding to support practices. As an outsourced solution, and practice management consulting partner, we can help reduce the overspending and waste when it comes to the healthcare operations.

When to Consider Outsourcing?

Typically, a practice manager considers outsourcing their billing for one of two reasons.

Either their collections are too low, or their overhead is too high.

Chart A

When to Consider Outsourcing

Poor Collections

· Inability to identify and collect underpayments

· Lack of staff to fight for balances due

· Limited time to allocate to denial management

High Overhead

Practices may be operationally sound by receiving the full allotment of reimbursements, but revenue is nullified by:

· Man hours

· High salaries

· Benefits

Outsourcing your billing and collections is a valuable investment for a practice manager pursuing timely collections and a streamlined front office.

If you are unaware of the current state of your medical practice’s financial health, or if you are seeking an annual industry benchmark comparison, you may find it valuable to request a Revenue Cycle Audit.

These assessments help practice owners identify areas of weakness within their revenue cycle process. And that information can be used in assessing and selecting the right outsourced solution to meet the needs of your practice.

5 Steps to Conducting an Assessment of your practice versus an Outsourced Medical Solution

Analyze net collection ratio, length of time it takes to receive payment for services provided and the way staff manages claims that are denied.
Review the number of employees to determine if additional staff is needed and whether your practice is willing to pay for the additional training, technology costs, and benefits.
Compare outsourcing services to determine what sets them apart.
Ask outsourcing vendors if they charge a fixed monthly fee or if they are paid based on a percentage.
Evaluate and compare your current cost for collections to the cost of outsourcing.

Once you have successfully completed your assessment, you will need to factor in your practice’s actual and allocated costs (payroll, benefits, training cost, etc.) To calculate your internal costs as a percentage of billing and collections, take your total billing and collection costs and divide that by your annual collections (Chart B). Compare your results with a vendor to see what works for your practice.

Chart B

Calculating Internal Costs to a Percent of Collections

Annual Collections	$4,000,000
Description	Cost
Salary, Wages & Benefits	$198,149
Statement Costs	$13,800
Server Costs	$2,175
Software Costs	$10,980
EDI Costs	$5,125
Training Costs	$5,000
Staffing Turnover Costs	$4,000
Communication	$3,000
Real Estate Occupancy	$12,000
Lost Revenue as Result of 5% Errors	$150,000
TOTAL COSTS (Internal Billing & Collections)	$404,229
TOTAL COSTS AS A PERCENT OF COLLECTIONS	10%

How Can I Outsource?

If your practice is interested in outsourcing your medical billing, collections and credentialing, please contact MEREM Healthcare Solutions for more information.

Outsourcing medical billing and coding significantly increase a physician’s confidence that the billing is handled accurately and efficiently. Merem Healthcare Solutions eliminates time, frustration, and expense associated with building and maintaining skilled professionals needed to achieve optimal reimbursement in the ever-changing and very challenging insurance industry. Above all, Merem clients know their business interests are in the hands of competent committed professionals.

Amanda Cherry